The Quiet Collapse of SAARC: How Strategic Rivalries and New Regional Blocs Reshaped South Asian Diplomacy
For nearly three decades, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) symbolised the promise of regional cooperation in one of the world’s most politically complicated neighbourhoods. Established in 1985, SAARC brought together eight South Asian nations—India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, and later Afghanistan—under a single diplomatic umbrella designed to promote economic integration, security dialogue, and regional stability.
Today, however, SAARC exists largely in name only. Its last full summit took place in Kathmandu in 2014. The organisation has effectively remained dormant since the cancellation of the 2016 summit scheduled in Islamabad. The geopolitical vacuum left by SAARC’s paralysis has allowed alternative regional frameworks—most notably the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC)—to gain prominence.
This transformation raises uncomfortable questions across diplomatic circles in Washington, Brussels, Beijing and Islamabad. Did SAARC collapse naturally due to long-standing India–Pakistan rivalry? Or was its decline accelerated by deliberate strategic choices by New Delhi’s foreign policy establishment—particularly under India’s current external affairs minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar?
The Turning Point: The Uri Attack and the 2016 Summit
The decisive moment in SAARC’s modern history came after the 2016 Uri attack in Jammu and Kashmir, where militants killed 18 Indian soldiers. In response, India announced it would not attend the SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November 2016.
Diplomatic momentum quickly shifted. Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan also withdrew from the meeting, leading to its postponement. Under the rules governing SAARC, even the absence of a single member can derail a summit. With several key countries absent, the meeting collapsed.
Since then, no SAARC summit has been held. More than a decade after the last leaders’ meeting in Kathmandu, the organisation’s institutional machinery remains frozen.
The Rise of BIMSTEC
As SAARC stagnated, India’s diplomatic attention gradually shifted toward BIMSTEC—a grouping that connects South Asia with Southeast Asia and includes India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand, but notably excludes Pakistan.
This shift was neither accidental nor purely procedural. From India’s strategic perspective, BIMSTEC offered several advantages.
First, it removed Pakistan from the regional framework. For decades, tensions between India and Pakistan had repeatedly paralysed SAARC initiatives. Trade agreements stalled, security cooperation failed, and regional integration remained largely theoretical.
Second, BIMSTEC geographically aligned India’s diplomacy with the Bay of Bengal and the Indo-Pacific strategy increasingly promoted by major powers including the United States, Japan and Australia.
Third, BIMSTEC allowed India to play a dominant institutional role. In SAARC, India had to constantly balance Pakistan’s political opposition and smaller states’ concerns about Indian dominance. In BIMSTEC, India is by far the largest economy and strategic power.
Jaishankar’s Diplomatic Doctrine
The architect most closely associated with this policy shift is Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. A career diplomat before entering politics, Jaishankar has long advocated a more pragmatic and interest-driven foreign policy for India.
Under his approach, regional diplomacy has moved away from multilateral idealism toward what some analysts describe as “selective multilateralism”—choosing frameworks that better serve India’s strategic objectives.
Jaishankar has repeatedly emphasised that regional cooperation cannot function if terrorism and security concerns remain unresolved. In several public statements, he argued that meaningful economic cooperation cannot occur “when terrorism happens by night and trade happens by day.”
For New Delhi, therefore, the stagnation of SAARC was not necessarily a diplomatic failure. It was a reflection of structural reality.
Competing Interpretations
However, critics interpret the same developments differently. Some analysts argue that India’s decision to abandon SAARC effectively killed the organisation.
Because India accounts for roughly 70 percent of South Asia’s total GDP, its participation is indispensable for any meaningful regional integration project. Without India’s leadership and market access, SAARC’s economic agenda cannot function.
From this perspective, New Delhi’s pivot to BIMSTEC effectively replaced SAARC rather than merely supplementing it.
Others go further, suggesting that the transformation reflects a wider geopolitical game—one shaped by major powers competing for influence in the Indian Ocean.
The Russian Angle
One controversial interpretation circulating among geopolitical analysts suggests that the weakening of SAARC indirectly aligns with certain strategic ideas historically associated with Russian foreign policy thinking.
Russian diplomacy has long been skeptical of regional institutions dominated by Western economic models. Instead, Moscow has often supported flexible regional alignments where large states exert strong leadership over their immediate neighbourhoods.
In this view, a fragmented South Asia—organised through smaller, competing regional initiatives rather than a single strong organisation—creates a more fluid strategic environment.
Although there is no public evidence that Moscow directly influenced India’s SAARC policy, some analysts speculate that elements of Russian geopolitical doctrine resonate with the strategic thinking of certain Indian policy circles.
This speculation often references the ideas associated with Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s long-serving foreign minister, whose diplomatic philosophy emphasises multipolar regional blocs rather than large multilateral institutions dominated by Western norms.
Whether such intellectual influence actually exists remains difficult to prove.
The Silence of the West
Equally puzzling to some observers is the relative silence of Western powers regarding SAARC’s disappearance from the diplomatic stage.
Neither the United States nor the European Union has made serious efforts to revive the organisation, despite its potential importance for regional stability and economic development.
Instead, Western governments have largely supported India’s broader Indo-Pacific strategy, which places greater emphasis on maritime security alliances such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad).
In this context, SAARC may simply have lost strategic relevance.
The Role of Smaller States
Another critical question concerns the behaviour of SAARC’s smaller members.
Countries such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives have historically depended on regional institutions to balance India’s overwhelming influence. SAARC provided them with a platform where decisions required consensus rather than unilateral leadership.
Yet none of these states has successfully organised an independent SAARC summit without India’s participation.
This raises a fundamental diplomatic dilemma: can a regional organisation survive when its largest member loses interest?
For smaller South Asian countries, reviving SAARC without India would be politically risky and economically impractical. But allowing the organisation to fade away risks leaving the region without any comprehensive cooperative framework.
A Region Without a Forum
The consequences of SAARC’s paralysis extend beyond diplomatic symbolism.
South Asia remains one of the least economically integrated regions in the world. Intra-regional trade accounts for less than 5 percent of total commerce, compared with nearly 25 percent in ASEAN and more than 60 percent within the European Union.
Regional challenges—from climate change and disaster management to energy security and migration—require collective solutions.
Without a functioning regional institution, these issues must be addressed through fragmented bilateral arrangements.
The Strategic Question Ahead
The central question facing South Asia today is not simply whether SAARC can be revived.
It is whether the region still needs it.
If BIMSTEC evolves into a stronger economic and security framework linking South Asia with Southeast Asia, some policymakers may argue that SAARC’s mission has already been replaced.
Yet the absence of Pakistan from BIMSTEC means that the most significant geopolitical rivalry in South Asia remains outside that structure.
As long as India and Pakistan remain locked in strategic competition, any regional organisation that includes both countries will struggle to function.
A Diplomatic Mystery
Ultimately, the story of SAARC’s decline illustrates how regional institutions can quietly disappear without a formal decision to dissolve them.
There was no official declaration ending SAARC. No treaty was revoked. No diplomatic funeral was held.
Instead, the organisation simply stopped meeting.
In the corridors of South Asian diplomacy, that quiet disappearance may prove to be one of the most revealing geopolitical developments of the past decade.
For policymakers in Washington, Beijing, London and Brussels, the lingering question remains: did SAARC collapse because it was inherently unworkable—or because powerful actors decided that a different regional order better served their strategic interests?
In South Asia’s complicated geopolitical landscape, the answer may be a mixture of both.